Victory for Zob!

[banzait...@gmail.com]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/next-wal-mart-pay-raises-134331691.html

Congrats sir. We expect a commensurate increase in new toy reviews now.

-Banzaitron

[Zobovor]

On Wednesday, June 3, 2015 at 10:21:26 PM UTC-6, banzait...@gmail.com wrote:

> Congrats sir. We expect a commensurate increase in new toy reviews now.

I appreciate the sentiment, but this probably isn't going to significantly impact me personally. I've been with the company so long (since 2003) that I'm already earning more per hour than they want to pay the department managers. My wife also works for Walmart (she was hired about two months after me) and they did adjust her pay scale... by four cents an hour. They literally gave her a four cent raise.

However, they're changing the way they dole out pay increases at each annual review. It used to be a flat 40- or 50-cent increase based on merit, but now it's switching to something like four or five percent of your hourly rate. That doesn't sound like much, but a five percent increase for me is a lot more than fifty cents an hour.


Zob (and now that the weather in Utah is finally nice, maybe I can actually sell some pools and water guns)

[Zobovor]

On Wednesday, June 3, 2015 at 10:45:54 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:

> I appreciate the sentiment, but this probably isn't going to significantly
> impact me personally.

Ah! Turns out I was wrong. I'm actually going to be LOSING money.

Before I was managing the Toys department, I was over Pets/Stationery/Celebrations/Crafts. That's a lot for one person to do at once, and I was trying, but not feeling successful. (It's highly telling that they broke up those departments between two new department managers when I left. It took two people to do the job I was doing singlehandedly!) So, when I went to Toys, they actually gave me a bump in pay. The way I looked at it, I was getting paid more to have less responsibility. (Technically I was overseeing the Photo Lab as well, but it wasn't much of a hands-on responsibility; the Photo Lab associates basically ran everything for me.)

The point of all this is that they're doing yet another restructuring. They're getting rid of the ZMS role (the intermediate supervisor role above Department Manager, which is what I do, and below Assistant Manager, who are all salaried) and adding some new Department Managers to the stores.

I was given the choice of either a) keeping my current pay rate as a Level 7 and overseeing only Photo Lab and Wireless, or b) oversee Toys and add Celebrations, but drop down to a Level 6. You guys probably know what I picked, despite the fact that it's the exact opposite of the earlier scenario-- i.e., MORE responsibility for LESS money. Well, karma's a bitch, I guess.

(On the other hand, my oldest son turned 18 this year so I'm no longer paying child support. So, that's money in the bank, literally. He got a job at my store recently; how weird is that? Am I sharing too much? How do I get this rash to go away?)


Zob (tried topical ointments, but to no avail)

[Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People.]

On Saturday, June 20, 2015 at 2:53:43 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
> I was given the choice of either a) keeping my current pay rate as a Level 7 and overseeing only Photo Lab and Wireless, or b) oversee Toys and add Celebrations, but drop down to a Level 6. You guys probably know what I picked, despite the fact that it's the exact opposite of the earlier scenario-- i.e., MORE responsibility for LESS money. Well, karma's a bitch, I guess.
>

I will say Wireless is a bitch and a half, the phone contract activation is always crashing, and changing, and at stores here takes up to 3 hours per activation with all the constant issues the systems have, and often having to call in over a phone line to an automated system to activate. Even though it wasn't my job, I've walked people through the process more times than I'd care to.